Good grief: Student musician turns mourning, nature into music

Langley Cerovich (front) performs with Shreveport, La., junior Mark Raines (back). Photo courtesy of Evelyn Pan.

By Jamie Barrett | Reporter

Vail, Colo., junior Langley Cerovich is the Music Industry Club’s newest signed artist, but he has been surrounded by music his whole life.

In high school, Cerovich participated in opera choir and musical theater, and around 2020 and 2021, he discovered his love for the guitar and began writing songs. This past year, however, is when he finally began to “seriously” start writing his own music.

“My relationship with music as far as writing is pretty recent, but I’ve always loved classical music and loved opera,” Cerovich said.

Even so, music is not something Cerovich wants to do as a career. He is a Business Fellow on the pre-med track, rounding out his triple major with finance and economics and minoring in biochemistry. He said music is just something fun to do while at Baylor.

“I wanted to share my music, mainly with the friends I’ve written [it] for,” Cerovich said.

Cerovich’s music is in the folk genre, so when writing songs, he said he tends to find inspiration in nature, past relationships, friends and grief. After the death of his best friend just before college and the death of another friend last summer, he said getting through the grief process has become what his music is for.

Because recording is complex and cost-heavy, Cerovich described himself as a performance artist, which allows him to share his music not only with his friends but also with everyone else at Baylor.

On Feb. 10, Cerovich performed a concert in the tunnel of Draper Academic Building, surrounded by his friends and a couple of new listeners. He said the environment of the concert was intimate yet engaging, with him starting his performance with covers of artists like The Lumineers and eventually transitioning into his original songs.

During the performance, Cerovich played guitar and sang while dancing around his makeshift stage — a single area rug, stool and lamp. It did not take long for those listening to begin swaying to the music.

Rockwall senior Dayna Smith said she didn’t know how talented Cerovich was until his performance.

“I have known Langley since freshman year, and I had no idea how talented he was,” Smith said. “I knew he sang, but I loved it.”

On March 14, Cerovich will headline a concert at Common Grounds on Eighth Street. He will donate all profits from ticket sales to the Bethlehem Home Hospital in Kenya, where he will be working this upcoming summer.